A TRAMP IN THE CATSKILLS 77 



sing in a tree near by. It sang as loud and cheerily as 

 at midday, and I thought myself, after all, quite in luck. 

 Birds occasionally sing at night, just as the cock crows. 

 I have heard the hairbird, and the note of the kingbird; 

 and the ruffed grouse frequently drums at night. 



At the first faint signs of day a wood thrush sang, 

 a few rods below us. Then after a little delay, as the 

 gray light began to grow around, thrushes broke out 

 in full song in all parts of the woods. I thought I had 

 never before heard them sing so sweetly. Such a lei- 

 surely, golden chant ! it consoled us for all we had 

 undergone. It was the first thing in order, the 

 worms were safe till after this morning chorus. I judged 

 that the birds roosted but a few feet from the ground. 

 In fact, a bird in all cases roosts where it builds, and 

 the wood thrush occupies, as it were, the first story of 

 the woods. 



There is something singular about the distribution 

 of the wood thrushes. At an earlier stage of my obser- 

 vations I should have been much surprised at finding 

 them in these woods. Indeed, I had stated in print on 

 two occasions that the wood thrush was not found in 

 the higher lands of the Catskills, but that the hermit 

 thrush and the veery, or Wilson's thrush, were common. 

 It turns out that this statement is only half true. The 

 wood thrush is found also, but is much more rare and 

 secluded in its habits than either of the others, being 

 seen only during the breeding season on remote moun- 

 tains, and then only on their eastern and southern 

 slopes. I have never yet in this region found the bird 

 spending the season in the near and familiar woods, 

 which is directly contrary to observations I have made 

 in other parts of the State. So different are the habits 

 of birds in different localities. 



